Textile art
We are delighted that Kate Just’s works ‘An Armour of Hope’ and ‘The Arms of Mother’ will be presented in the forthcoming exhibition ‘MOTHER: Stories from the NGV Collection’ at the National Gallery of Victoria at The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia, which will be launched on 27th March.
About these deeply personal pieces, that have been recently acquired by the National Gallery of Victoria, were produced during her PhD project exploring the relationship between textiles, skin, and touch, Kate shares: “Making their NGV debut are two of my works, which explore knitting’s metaphoric equivalency to skin. ‘An Armour of Hope’, 2012, took the form of a hand knitted chain-mail armour for our then recently adopted child Harper; while ‘The Arms of Mother’, 2012, were arm-length gloves for my own body embroidered with scars. The works materialised my own and Harper’s past familial losses, and our resilience and hope for the future.”
Curated by Sophie Gerhard and Katharina Prugger with assistance from Eva Christoff, the exhibition ‘MOTHER’ will be presented at The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia from 27 March to 12 July 2026.
Pictured: Kate Just, An Armour of Hope, 2012, hand-knitted metal and silk, 104 x 45 x 4 cm; The Arms of Mother, 2012, hand-knitted and hand embroidered rayon and cotton, 92 x 32 x 2 cm. Images courtesy of the artist
Please join us for an Finissage for 'The Felling Place' and 'Land marks, with an artist talk by Julia Robinson on Saturday 11th April, 1pm-3pm.
Artist Talk from 1:30pm
Julia Robinson’s ‘The Felling Place’, currently showing at Hugo Michell Gallery, is a foray into eco-horror and plant horror: sub-genres that arise from our fractured relationship with the natural world and might be characterised by narratives where nature is not only sentient but malevolent. In these narratives, plant life may strike back at humans and horror comes from our terrifying encounter with ‘monstrous’ vegetation.
This will also be the final day to experience Bridie Gillman's solo exhibition 'Land marks', an exhibition developed in Yogyakarta, Indonesia (affectionately – Jogja). Each piece has been made in response to a patchwork of everyday observations – a fleeting moment while on a motorbike or a slower studied observation while waiting for a meal. Translated through colour, these seen things and places become landmarks through which the artist navigates around town.
Hugo Michell Gallery are proud to partner with Bird in Hand Winery for this finissage event.
Hugo Michell Gallery acknowledges the Kaurna people as the traditional custodians of the Adelaide region, and that their cultural and heritage beliefs are still as important to the living Kaurna people today.
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BRIDIE GILLMAN
Land marks
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JULIA ROBINSON
The Felling Place
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Hugo Michell Gallery are proud to partner with Bird in Hand Winery for this opening event.
KATE JUST
A Sign of the Times
'A Sign of the Times', is new series of complex hand knitted homages to potent text-based, political, public signs by other artists that continue to resonate in our current political and social climate. The series expands upon her approach in past works such as Feminist Fan and Protest Signs, in which the artist deployed knitting to re-materialise and pay homage to significant historical queer/feminist artworks and protest texts, and affirm their position in the canon of art history.
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JUSTINE VARGA
Somerville Suite
Photography emerged from centuries of scientific inquiry into optics, chemistry, and mechanics. Yet typically, the material components essential to this process—light, chemicals, film, paper—dissolve into invisibility, subsumed within the constructed pictures they produce.
...Somerville Suite (2023-25) reverses this disappearance by reclaiming photography’s experimental origins. (Justine Varga's) prints lay bare an unfamiliar, elemental vision of the medium, gesturing not only outward towards representation of external realities but also inward, revealing layered practices shaped by human touch, skilled labour, and intimate dialogue with history. At first glance, the three prints dazzle with brightly coloured geometric forms in cyan, magenta, and yellow. Looking more closely reveals the artist’s mastery of craft and playful exploration of photography’s hidden processes. - (excerpt from text accompaniment by Erin Pauwels)
Hugo Michell Gallery are proud to partner with Bird in Hand Winery for this opening event.
We're delighted to share that Paul Yore is a finalist in the Deakin University Contemporary Small Sculpture Award for 2025, congratulations Paul!
The Deakin University Contemporary Small Sculpture Award, established in 2009, is organised by the Art Collection and Galleries Unit at Deakin University, Victoria. The award celebrates contemporary sculptures from artists around Australia, culminating in an exhibition of finalists' work held in August to October each year at the Deakin University Art Gallery.
The finalist exhibition will be presented from 27 August to 10 October 2025 at the Deakin University Art Gallery, Melbourne Burwood Campus.
Pictured: Paul Yore, Vegemite Jar (installation view), 2025, acrylic yarn needlepoint, cotton thread, and board, 18.5 x 15 x 15 cm, ed. of 5 + AP. Photography by Sam Roberts
We’re delighted to share that Sera Waters has been selected as one of 10 finalists in the 2025 Wangaratta Contemporary Textile Award.
The Wangaratta Contemporary Textile Award celebrates the diversity and strength of Australian textile art. Now in its ninth iteration, the Wangaratta Contemporary Textile Award was initially established to mark Wangaratta's long and prominent history of textile manufacturing and craft making. In furthering this unique tradition and social history the award celebrates and strengthens the development of contemporary textile practice in Australia. With the significant investment of project partners, the Kyamba Foundation, prize money now stands at $40,000, representing the richest textile prize in Australia.
The 2025 finalists, selected from over 430 entries Australia wide, are contemporary artists who not only demonstrate a mastery of technique in a broad textile medium, but innovation and excellence alongside a rigorous and robust conceptual practice.
The Wangaratta Contemporary Textile Award 2025 will open on Saturday 24 May 2025 with the winner announced that day. The exhibition continues until 17 August 2025.
Pictured: Sera Waters in her studio, 2020. Photography by Sia Duff
Please join us for the launch of Kate Just’s ‘50 Rules for Making Art’ and Fiona Roberts’ ‘Hereafter’ at Hugo Michell Gallery on Thursday 23rd May from 6-8pm, with an artist talk with Kate Just at 6pm to launch her accompanying publication.
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Kate Just
50 Rules for Making Art
Artist talk with Kate Just at 6pm to launch her accompanying publication.
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Fiona Roberts
Hereafter
‘Hereafter’ explores humanity's eternal quest for psychological and physical safety, manifested through the interplay of symbolism, superstitions, rituals and belief systems. Drawing upon symbolic representations of life and existence beyond, Roberts explores the profound existential inquiries that have plagued human consciousness throughout history.
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Hugo Michell Gallery are proud to partner with Bird in Hand Winery for this opening event.
Please join us in celebrating the launch of these two exhibitions!
Hugo Michell Gallery acknowledges the Kaurna people as the traditional custodians of the Adelaide region, and that their cultural and heritage beliefs are still as important to the living Kaurna people today.
‘Eerie Pageantry’ is a cornucopia of folk horror and art played out through a ritualistic meeting of made and modified materials, textures, colours, tools, bodies and nightmares. Julia Robinson and Don Driver's assemblages and sculptures form an elaborate ceremonial procession in the gallery space—an eerie pageantry of the Antipodean Gothic.
‘Eerie Pageantry’ is curated by Aaron Lister and Dr Chelsea Nichols as part of their project Curator of Screams which explores connections between contemporary art and horror films.
‘Eerie Pageantry’ is on display at City Gallery Wellington (Te Whare Toi), New Zealand, from 28 October to 18 February 2024.
We are thrilled to announce the launch of Paul Yore’s major survey exhibition ‘WORD MADE FLESH’ at the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne.
Presented as part of ACCA’s Contemporary Australian Solo Series, ‘Paul Yore: WORD MADE FLESH’, curated by Max Delany, is a comprehensive survey encompassing the full scope of Yore’s work—appliques, quilts, tapestry and needlework, banners and pendants, collage and assemblage, and largescale narrative and history paintings, as well as a major monographic publication. The exhibition will be constructed maximally as a gesamtkunstwerk, presenting work over the past fifteen years, alongside a major new room-scaled sculptural installation to be developed for the exhibition.
‘Paul Yore: WORD MADE FLESH’ will be presented at the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art from 24 September –20 November 2022.
Press Coverage
The Australian Arts Review: Paul Yore: WORD MADE FLESH
Sydney Morning Herald: Shaped by breakdown and brush with police, Paul Yore takes aim at modern life
ArtsHub: Paul Yore battling controversy with love and labour
Art Guide: Paul Yore on beauty, cooking and chaos - and why he's ultimately an optimist
The Guardian: Penis straws and obscene quilts: the artist turning junk into a queer church
NBC International News: 15 LGBTQ art shows that are spicing up global museums this fall
For artwork enquiries contact mail@hugomichellgallery.com